Spring Outside To-Do List

I really wanted to plant my indoor tomato seeds for the vegetable garden last weekend. But between the forecasted snowstorm and impending polar vortex (-3 in March?! What?!), it really didn’t feel right. Spring is going to be late this year, there’s no way around it. Obviously I’m so sick of winter - I can’t get spring out of my mind. I want sunshine and greenery, flowers and soft breezes. As soon as this awful snow melts I have big plans for outside. In no particular order, here’s what I want to get done:

1) Make a trellis for the clematis
I meant to do this in the Fall but we just ran out of time. The days were too short to have light after bedtime and Oliver’s naps were too short to fit it all in. I need to get this done before the clematis starts growing for the season.

2) Spring yard cleanup
Get rid of any leftover leaves, dead brush and plants. Fix the deer netting around the garden, weed the garden paths and beds. I did a good job cleaning up in the fall, so this shouldn’t be too bad.

3) Plant the new perennials, reorganize the garden, widen beds, mulch
The backyard garden along the fence has never been well planned out. The beds are now too small for the full sized plants (now that they are established) and I didn’t plan things out in a nice way (like the flat section of astilbe and the flat section of lilies). While I don’t plan on redoing the whole thing right now, I would like to make some mindful choices about aesthetics, positioning, seasons, and move a few things around.

4) Move the mailbox, make a mailbox garden bed.
Our mailbox is ridiculous in the middle of the front yard. Our mailman gets so mad when a visitor’s car blocks it (even when it’s not our visitor!). We need to move it near the driveway where no one will block it. And while we’re digging, let’s put in a nice flowerbed around it.

5) Prep the raised beds, plant the vegetable garden
This year we need to add in more dirt into our raised beds, the soil level has dropped too much from erosion.

6) Organize the garage
This was on our Fall to-do list but I never thought we’d really get to it. The garage is a disaster. Now that we have the attic floor down and the basement organized, the garage is next. And it’s bad.

7) Patch and seal the driveway (late spring, early summer)
We probably should have done this last summer, but we really need to do it again this year. Our driveway is starting to crumble again - as soon as the weather warms up we have to take a day to do this.